The complaints, lodged by analysts at U.S. Central Command in 2015, are separate from allegations that analysts made to the Defense Department inspector general, who is now investigating “whether there was any falsification, distortion, delay, suppression, or improper modification of intelligence information” by the senior officials that run CENTCOM’s intelligence group.

This second set of accusations, which have not been previously reported, were made to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). They show that the officials charged with overseeing all U.S. intelligence activities were aware, through their own channels, of potential problems with the integrity of information on ISIS, some of which made its way to President Obama.

The analysts have said that they believe their reports were altered for political reasons, namely to adhere to Obama administration officials’ public statements that the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS is making progress and has put a dent in the group’s financing and operations.

That may lead to yet another uncomfortable confrontation between Congress and DNI James Clapper, whose reputation for honesty has long since vanished on Capitol Hill. Clapper had been asked directly about this issue in September at a Senate hearing, and claimed to have no awareness on the issue:

“It is an almost sacred writ… in the intelligence profession never to politicize intelligence. I don’t engage in it. I never have and I don’t condone it when it’s identified,” Clapper told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

But Clapper sought to downplay what he called “media hyperbole” about the substance of the analysts’ complaints. “I think it’s best that we all await the outcome of the DOD I.G. investigation to determine whether and to what extent there was any politicization of intelligence at CENTCOM,” Clapper said.

In fact, Clapper knew enough about the probe into politicized intel before this testimony to choose not to investigate it himself, Harris and Youssef report. That could be a supportable decision; the DoD was already investigating the issue, and an ODNI probe could either be redundant or create a conflict with the other investigation that might look like interference. (For that same reason, Congressional committees have steered clear of probing Hillary Clinton’s e-mail server issues until the FBI completes its investigation.)

But this isn’t the first time that Clapper has misled the Senate, and it’s beginning to look like a pattern. He insisted to Ron Wyden that the NSA wasn’t looking at domestic communications just a few months before Edward Snowden absconded with NSA data and exposed those programs (and many other things as well). Clapper later claimed to have “forgotten” about those programs when asked. Now it seems that while he decried the “media hyperbole” around the assumption of politicized intelligence, he knew damned well that it had been skewed, and refused to tell Congress about it.

Did he “forget” again at another convenient moment? If Clapper is this forgetful, why is he still serving as DNI?

Zuckerberg prolly realized our interests include things like faith, family, hard work, guns and stuff like that; the individuals and entities that Zuckerberg partners with had no interest in purchasing our information, as they have nothing to sell us.

purgatory [pur-guh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee]
noun, plural purgatories.
1. (in the belief of Roman Catholics and others) a condition or place in which the souls of those dying penitent are purified from venial sins, or undergo the temporal punishment that, after the guilt of mortal sin has been remitted, still remains to be endured by the sinner.
2. (initial capital letter, italics). Italian Purgatorio
[poor-gah-taw-ryaw] (Show IPA). the second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which the repentant sinners are depicted.
Compare inferno (def 3), paradise (def 7).3. any condition or place of temporary punishment, suffering, expiation, or the like.

purgatory [pur-guh-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee]
noun, plural purgatories.
1. (in the belief of Roman Catholics and others) a condition or place in which the souls of those dying penitent are purified from venial sins, or undergo the temporal punishment that, after the guilt of mortal sin has been remitted, still remains to be endured by the sinner.
2. (initial capital letter, italics). Italian Purgatorio
[poor-gah-taw-ryaw] (Show IPA). the second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy, in which the repentant sinners are depicted.
Compare inferno (def 3), paradise (def 7).
3. any condition or place of temporary punishment, suffering, expiation, or the like.

The readers and commenters here have been loyal supporters of both you and Hot Air more generally. The stone cold silence in the face of the tsunami of sentiment expressed by those commenters in the wake of yesterday’s announcement has been shocking.

Posting an edict and then acting like the response to it never occurred seems pretty disrespectful to me. I think our loyalty over many years deserves better.

Seriously! I can’t “like” or “friend” anyone, and if I want Mark Zuckerberg to know what I’m thinking, I have to forward this to him separately! Who’s got time for that? Just let Mark Zuckerberg have direct control, already, and if you could feed all this to my employers, too, that would be great!

When the next President (Trump) gets in, there will be years of investigations over Zero’s corruption, if he bought a house in some little Moslem country, like its been reported, he better make a bee line for it !

It’s looking more and more like there is a counter Intel operation being perpetrated against the American people. And it is being run out the White House. With Clapper being near the top of this operation. I can also say the other principles, besides the president, are Ben Rhodes and Susan Rice and Valeri Jarrett.

If you go alphabet by alphabet and look at the top people in each one, you’ll notice there seems to be one common element. They are all incompetent. Usually a business can survive one ignorant person at the top but the rot could go deeper and I don’t feel too secure knowing he’s watching my back or that Yellen is in control of the money and Jewell is killing coal.

The readers and commenters here have been loyal supporters of both you and Hot Air more generally. The stone cold silence in the face of the tsunami of sentiment expressed by those commenters in the wake of yesterday’s announcement has been shocking.

Posting an edict and then acting like the response to it never occurred seems pretty disrespectful to me. I think our loyalty over many years deserves better.

Arnold Yabenson on February 16, 2016 at 9:20 AM

Ditto.

The way Ed handled this deserves a Harvard case study in cluelessness.

On the surface it seems incredible that Ed refuses to even say goodbye or talk to anyone commenting.
But I think that he is just a homely , insecure doofus with above average but not stellar writing ability who wants desperately to be liked by ” the cool kids.” He thinks Facebook will provide him with he affirmation and broader appeal he thinks he was denied here.

Wonder what the Facebook crowd will think of Ed’s Vaticanista missives.